Ovi Magazine Issue #26: WWI - 100 years - Published: 2014-07-28

Although geopolitically defeated and ideologically contained by the Vienna Congress and
its instrument: the Holy Alliance of Eastern Conservative Courts, the very idea of a nationstate
remained appealing. Once the revolutionary 1848 ousted the principal guardian of
feudalism in Europe, Metternich, the suppressed concept got further impetus. And, the
revolutionary romance went on… Hence, the very creation of central European nationstates
was actually enhanced by Napoleon III. The unification of Italophones was his, nearly
obsessive, inten-tional deed (as he grew up in Nice with Italian Carbonari revolutionists
who were fighting papal and Habsburg’s control over the northern portions of today’s
Italy). Conversely, the very unification of Germanophones under the Greater Prussia
was his non-intentional mis-chief, with the two subsequently emerging ‘by-products’;
modern Austria (German-speaking core assembled on the ruins of mighty multinational
and multi-linguistic empire) and modern Turkey (Turkophone core on the ruins of mighty
multiracial and multi-linguistic empire).
Despite being geographically in the heart of Europe, Switzerland remained a remarkably
stable buffer zone: Highly militarized but defensive and obsessively neutral, economically
omnipresent yet financially secretive, it represents one confederated state of two
confronting versions of western Christianity, of three ethnicities and of four languages.
Absent from most of the modern European politico-military events – Switzerland in short
– is terra incognita.
Historically speaking, the process of Christianization of Europe used as the justification
tool to pacify the invading tribes, that demolished the Roman Empire and brought to an
end the Antique age, was running parallel on two tracks. One of them was conducted
by the Roman Curia/Vatican and its hammer: the Holy Roman Empire. The second was
run by the cluster of Rusophone Slavic Kaganates, who receiving (the orthodox or true/
authentic, so-called Eastern version of) Christianity from Byzantium, and past its collapse,
have taken over a mission of Christianization, while forming its first state of Kiev Russia
(and thereafter, its first historic empire). So, to the eastern edge of Europe, Russophones
have lived in an intact world of universalism for centuries: one empire, one Tsar, one
religion and one language. 12
Everything in between Central Europe and Russia is Eastern Europe, rather a historic
novelty on the political map of Europe. Very formation of the Atlantic Europe’s present
shape dates back to 14 th –15 th century, of Central Europe to the mid-late 19 th century, while
12 Annotated from one of my earlier writings, it states as following: “…Early Russian state has ever since expanded north/ northeast
and eastward, reaching the physical limits of its outreach by crossing the Bering straits (and the sale of Russian Alaska to the USA in 1867).
By the late 17 th and early 18 th century, Russia had begun to draw systematically into European politico-military theatre. (…) In the meantime,
Europe’s universalistic empire dissolved. It was contested by the challengers (like the Richelieu’s France and others–geopolitical, or the
Lutheran/Protestant – ideological), and fragmented into the cluster of confronted monarchies, desperately trying to achieve an equilibrium
through dynamic balancing. To this similar political process will affect Russian universal empire only by late 20 th century, following the
Soviet dissolution. (…) Not fully accepted into the European collective system before the Metternich’s Holy Alliance, even had its access
into the post-Versailles system denied, Russia was still not ignored like other peripheral European power. The Ottomans, conversely, were
negated from all of the security systems until the very creation of the NATO (Republic of Turkey). Through the pre-emptive division of
Poland in the eve of WWII, and successful campaigns elsewhere in Eastern Europe, Russia expanded both its territory and its influence
westwards. (…) An early Soviet period of Russia was characterized by isolated bilateral agreements, e.g. with Germans, Fins, Japanese,
etc. The post WWII days have brought the regional collective system of Warsaw Pact into existence, as to maintain the communist gains
in Europe and to effectively oppose geopolitically and ideologically the similar US-led block. Besides Nixon’s reapproachment towards
China, the collapse of the Soviet Union was the final stage in the progressive fragmentation of the vast Sino-Soviet Communist block
(that dominated the Euroasian land mass with its massive size and centrality), letting Russia emerge as the successor. The sudden Soviet
break-up, however, was followed by the cultural shock and civil disorder, painful economic crisis and rapidly widening disparities, as well
as the humiliating wars in Caucasus and elsewhere, since the centripetal and centrifugal forces of integration or fragmentations came into
the oscillatory play. Between 1989 and 1991, communist rule ended in country after country and the Warsaw Pact officially dissolved.
Subsequently, the Gorbachev-Jeltsin Russia experienced the greatest geopolitical contraction of any major power in the modern era and one
of the fastest ever in history. Still, Gorbachev-Jeltsin tandem managed to (re-)brand themselves domestically and internationally – each got
its own label of vodka…” (Verticalization of Historical Experiences: Europe’s and Asia’s Security Structures – Structural Similarities and
Differences, Crossroads – the Macedonian Foreign Policy Journal, 4 (1), page 111-112, M-MFA 2008)